South Coast Time Traveller

Wednesday, November 1, 2017

Since his first Pambula
Show woodchop in 1951, Gordon Radford has become one of the most recognisable
faces of the event locally.

Gordon’s foray into the
sport is perhaps unsurprising. Both his father & grandfather were champion
axemen, & his uncle, Bob Radford, was a world champion. In recognition of
his father's contribution to the sport locally, the local A. H.
& P. Society introduced the Percy Radford Memorial 300 mm Standing Block
Championship.

Despite this Radford
family tradition, however, it was actually while working as a farm hand for
Frank Kelly that Gordon first got involved with the sport. With the encouragement
of his boss, he decided to try his hand at chopping, & it was Frank who also
gave the newcomer his first axe.

Gordon learnt the art of
the sport through self-instruction until moving to Goulburn in 1963. There, he
said, "I got in with a couple of blokes who...showed me a lot of the finer
points & it went from there, I really kicked on from there."

When he came back to
Pambula to pick up wife Dot & son Kevin, it was just in time for the local show,
& although he hadn't brought any axes with him, his father Percy encouraged
him to enter the woodchops, lending him his beautiful Plumb axe. Gordon had
improved so much during his time in Goulburn that he broke the show record for
the 12-inch underhand, chopping it off in 17 & two-fifths seconds. He was quick
to point out that "...the wood's your time, the better your log, the
quicker you cut it..." That said though, he still managed to take 12 or 15
seconds off the previous record to set a new one that still stands today.

Gordon recalled a chop
at the 1963 Yass Show when he won a tray & £30. Money was a bit tight at
the time, & he laughed that "The tray didn't mean anything that day,
but the 30 quid did. I shouted Dot & Kevin
pies & peas at the cafe."

For many years, Gordon
cut with fellow wood chopper Bob Munday of Kiah. He recalled "...we used to
go all around together to wood chops." After teaming up at the butcher's
block, the pair won everywhere from Pambula, Bega, Eden & as far up as
Tumut & Canberra, winning about 17 events on end & taking out the Bega &
Tumut events off the hefty handicap of 50. They also took second place in the
event at the Royal Easter Show in Sydney.

Gordon has literally
hundreds of ribbons for his efforts in the wood chopping arena, not only from local
shows but many other venues as well including the Sydney Royal Easter where he
first cut in about 1962. And on a number of occasions he has even managed to
take out the entire programme at Pambula, a feat that doesn’t occur very often.
This long association with the sport has seen Gordon compete on all of the Pambula
Show Society's three home grounds, probably the only person who could
truthfully make that claim.

Although he no longer
cuts at the local show, his lengthy involvement continues. Now a patron of the Pambula
A. H. & P. Society, Gordon's involvement with the committee dates back to
1967. For many years he held the position of Vice President & he ran the
wood chopping events for even longer.

The wood chops have been
popular both with competitors & show patrons since the first Pambula Show
in 1902. Originally the events were as much an effort to hone skills as the
show pavilion was an attempt to improve yields, the timber industry,
particularly sleeper cutting being an important local industry back when the
show started out. With the Australian sleeping cutting industry now defunct,
wood chopping has become a competitive sport, maintaining important skills from
yesteryear.

Wednesday, June 28, 2017

This article is based on oral interviews conducted with Terry in 1993 & 1996, which have been transcribed exactly as told.

Born in Sydney
on May 4, 1920, Terence John
("Terry") Dowling was the eldest child & only son of Herbert John
& Margaret.

Within a few years of his birth, his parents moved to the small far south coast township of Pambula where his father had been born & raised and where the Dowling family
had lived since the 1850's. Terry's great grandfather William had been the
original selector of the South Pambula property he named Punt Hole Farm. The holding is known today as Boondella. Terry noted "That
was selected bloody land, old Billy Dowling selected that, old Bill & his
gang...well that was a hundred & twenty bloody years ago..." Named
after Punt Hole, the spot in the river from which local produce was transported
down stream to waiting ships, Terry pointed out "It's hard to believe that
a fair sized boat come in to that Punt Hole isn't it, so it gives you an idea
of how the Pambula River has sanded up..."

John Dowling at Punt Hole Farm.

His two younger sisters were born in Nurse Cousemacher's
lying in hospital in Bullara Street, Pambula. However, after his father passed away
in 1929, his mother, herself a Sydney girl, made the decision to return to the
city, taking Terry & his siblings with her. This was during the harsh days
of the Great Depression, when the razor gangs reigned supreme &
not surprisingly, it didn't take long for the curious country kid to become
acquainted with their activities on the inner city streets. Terry remembered
one in particular, "Chow" Hayes, commenting "...there was a
gangster years ago by the name of Chow Hayes, this was when the razor gangs
were in, Tilly Devine & all, this Chow Hayes , I thought he was bloody dead
years ago, there was this newspaper article, it must have been in the Age, &
here's this bloody photo of Chow, this is only last year [1995], now he'd have
to be in his nineties, it was about another gangster, & he shot him, put
four or five bullets in him, & he said 'If I thought the bastard was still
alive, I'd have put another one in him', I don't know how many years he spent
in prison, but he'd just got out, I remember Chow and those razor gangs, I'd be one of
the few still around that would know them, well I was only a kid that they
never worried about..."

Terry always maintained that during those harsh,
impoverished days, even the rats were dying of starvation in the city, so the
young teen decided to head back to Pambula. He pointed out that "...the
widow's pension that my mother got was her rent for me, right, so I came back &
lived with my Grandmother & then my Aunty. Well that enabled my mother &
two sisters to have a roof over their heads in 27 Little Cleveland Street,
Redfern..." an address that he recited with disdainful emphasis right up
until his last days.

Terry's aunt Deletha, with whom he lived after coming back
to Pambula.

With money in short supply, he took a train as far as the
few bob he had in his pocket would take him, & then took to "shank's
pony". "I got a train back as far as whatever bit of money I had, &
then as soon as I seen bloody daylight, I was walking, & a vegetable bloke
picked me up somewhere along the road, the old bloke gave me a bloody good
lift..."

Back in Pambula, Terry led the carefree life of a country
kid. He lived first with his Grandmother in the little weatherboard cottage next
to the School of Arts (now the town hall), & then later with his Aunty, Uncle & three cousins,
Ernie, Mick & Allan ("Bubby") George, in the house that stood in Merimbola Street where the Oasis Units are now located.

Although they was never had much as far as money was concerned, Terry always insisted that life was much better in the country compared to the city during those
Depression years. "When I came back to my Auntie's place, we lived like Lords
food wise. We always had a good garden, chooks, plenty of butter, fresh milk,
cream, we had a bloody old fishing net...& we'd go down & set that
behind the race course & get half a corn bag or a corn bag of beautiful fresh
fish, all sorts, Christ we lived well. We never had any money, but listen,
nobody else had any money either, everybody was used to that, but as far as
food, & we had a good bed to get into, we had plenty of bloody blankets."
It was during these Depression days that Terry's philosophy on life was born - he maintained that as long as he had a roof over his head, a dry bed &
food in his belly, he had everything he needed in life.

Despite, or perhaps because of, those harsh economic times,
the local community looked after its own, & Terry remembered the
cooperative small town spirit & helping hand constantly extended to family,
friends & neighbours with fondness. "You didn't swap anything, you
gave somebody something which you had excess to...I went with my Uncle one
night & he caught a bloody Jew fish...about five foot long...no
refrigeration, just the old Coolgardie...the next morning he was butchering
that up to take across to Mrs. Radford, well he probably had fifteen or twenty
bloody pound of big cutlets...if you knew somebody with a big mob of kids &
you just had excess things, well then somewhere along the line, those poor
buggers, they'd do something for you, if they never had any money, they'd do
something, do their best anyhow."

Even the "swaggies" that were constantly moving
through the region would get & give equally. "They never come &
asked for bloody nothing, they'd ask you if they could do a bit of work for
food...Well everybody had a wood heap right, & mainly they'd have these
bloody old knotty logs, & these poor buggers, they could split it, but even
young people back then, they seemed to be more experienced...There'd be twenty
mainly young people walking from Sydney to Melbourne & vice versa, they'd
be crossing each other, camping in the bloody old tennis courts down there, the
football ground, well the next day the coppers would be down there to move them
on, too right, never let them stop too long in the one place."

Pocket money was unheard of, but Terry & his mates were
always on the lookout for a chance to "...make a buck..." With local
blacksmiths Bill & Dan Smith offering 1/6 a bag for charcoal, Terry &
Bubby saw an opportunity too good to pass up. After spending £3/10/- on an old
eighteen-foot clinker built boat, complete with anchor, ropes & two or
three tins of paint, the pair cast an entrepreneurial eye over timber growing
on the town common. They promptly set fire to the area & burnt everything
in sight, & then spent an industrious day bagging the charcoal up for sale.
Loading their precious cargo into the boat until there was barely any
freeboard, the teens set off up the river, propelled by an old bamboo blind
hoisted on an oar. Everything was going well...until a gust of wind drove their
boat up onto oyster leases, ripping the bottom out of it & dumping the
fruits of their hard earned labour into the water. Then, to add insult to
injury, the pair had to walk empty handed all the way home, where they promptly
"...got into strife..." for being late for milking!

Dan & Bill Smith were the focus of another of Terry's
tales, this one centring on a practical joke gone horribly awry. "There
was an old bloke, Jockey Gleeson, who lived opposite Auntie's place, where
Ronnie Haigh lives. Old Dan & Bill had the blacksmith's shop that Kevin
Fanning's father had...they had a bit of a mine somewhere...mainly those times
they'd be blacksmithing up tools & that sort of thing, & this old
Gleeson comes in this Saturday to pick up his gear at the blacksmith's shop.
Now Bill & Dan had quartz that they broke, melted brass on the forge,
tipped it into the bottom of the quartz & pressed the other quartz into it.
Well now, if you've ever seen anything like gold in quartz, that was it, they
were having a bit of a joke with old Jockey see. They had an old sugar bag
planted, & this old blacksmith's shop was a bit dark, no bloody electric
light or nothing, & of course they take him in & show him this gold.
This sent old Jockey off...he went down & shouted for everyone in the pub,
right. He said 'Dan & Bill's cracked it!' & they said, 'What are you
talking about?', & he said 'They've found this reef.'...Poor old bastard,
he probably spent all the money he had buying grog & celebrating old Dan &
Bill Smith's bloody success...By Jesus, that turned out sour in the finish with
poor old Jockey, their friendship & everything busted over it...What
started off to be a practical joke, see, it busted the friendship & nearly
sent old Jockey bloody silly, that's how it affected him. Of course the gold
had affected him in the first place, anyhow, he went out & camped in the
bush...he was married, I don't know whether his wife left him, pissed off or
what, but the gold got him that bad, he went bush, he was that mad on gold that
he went & lived with it...Poor old Bill & Dan, they were bloody upset
too, because they didn't mean it, they were always playing jokes on one another
see, & this time it backfired, he never spoke to them again..."

Terry's school days were spent at Pambula when students
numbers stood at around seventy, with just Mrs. Woollard & Principal Mr.
Haines teaching two classes. Empire Day & the Queen's Birthday were
important annual events, & gardening was a subject he took to with gusto.
"We'd do weekly gardening lessons, my bloody oath we did. Our old headmaster
was a pretty cluey guy, wish I'd listened to him a bit more, my bloody oath, he
was no fool, old William Gorrie Haines...But you were all junior farmers
because every bloody junior had to milk a cow before he went to school...you'd
get home & milk the cows, well you had no milking machines so you had to do
it..." It was during his school days with Mr. Haines that Terry developed
what would become a life-long love of gardening, something that remained with
him for the rest of his days, & even after moving to Morwell (Vic.), his
backyard was dominated by his treasured veggie patch.

Pambula Public School, upper division, 1935.William Gorrie Haines is pictured fourth from left in the second back row.

Public transport was unheard of in rural areas then, so
school children had to either walk or ride to school. Terry remembered "A
lot of poor bloody kids had to ride horses three or four miles & now
they've got buses picking them up. There was a paddock at the school for the
horses, but no bloody chaff or oats though, no nose bags for the poor bastards,
only the palings to eat, right."

Principal Haines was someone that Terry spoke about with
almost a touch of awe & reverence later in life. "I can remember the
first surfboard I ever saw in my bloody life, old Billy Haines, our old school
master made that out of balsa wood. You know all these modern surfboards
they've got now, old Billy Haines sixty years ago made them, my bloody oath he
did, bloody unsinkable they were. We never had the money to buy the balsa wood,
the glue or anything, Mr. Haines did it for us. We were supposed to be surf
men, we were the big surfers, all we had to surf on was a big chunk of
pine...but old William Gorrie said 'I'll make you something better than
that.'"

A young Terry Dowling.

"As far as the Pambula Surf Club went, we never had
enough money to go to friggin' Merimbula, so how could we compete against
anyone, like go up the line to Sydney, Port Kembla & where they were having
the big surf tournaments, we never had the money to go there, our parents never
had it, so there might have been some champions there, but the poor buggers
never got a chance."

The epitome of the Australian larrikin, many weekends would
find Terry cutting firewood for local Police Constable Bottrell as punishment
for some misdemeanour or another. He said that although he initially left
school at the minimum leaving age of fourteen, he struggled to find a full time
job, so quickly found himself back in the classroom at the insistence of the
policeman. "I couldn't find a job so bloody Bottrell sent me back to
school, see I was getting into trouble & he got sick of it. I cut the
bastard cords & cords of wood, & he said 'The best place for you is
back to school.'" Restocking his wood heap was the Constable's penalty of
choice for the young trouble makers around town, & Terry laughs at the
memory: "Old Puddin' Burgess & I cut some wood. Wasn't too sharp a saw
either, bloody old cross cut saw, we had to pull our bloody guts out with it...He
was alright though, old Bottrell, he was only trying to look after us, poor
bastard, jeez he had it, but he was alright..."

Terry & his mates thought all their Christmases had come
at once when they discovered firearms & ammunition in a shed at the back of
the Pambula Voice office, but once again, Constable Bottrell beat them to the
punch. "There was these two brand new revolvers, '44's, with a big heap of
ammunition, they were in the back of the old Voice office, it must have been
when they were travelling with gold from the old Yowaka Mine. We were going to
pinch them, Puddin' Burgess & I...but oh Jesus, they'd blow a friggin' hole
in the friggin' ground, I'd hate to be shot with one. But they were brand new
mate, & boxes of ammunition, I don't know how they got in the back of
bloody Eustace Phillipp's shed...I've got a faint idea that Bottrell got them,
he didn't want them to get into the hands of us fellows right..."

Mention of the Constable reminded Terry of his first car, a Charon
ute that he purchased with money earned cutting & bagging wattle bark. "When
I was sixteen I bought this bloody ute for sixteen quid, which was one ton of
wattle bark, £16 a ton, that was what wattle bark was...Poor old Hocky Woods
who lived at South Pambula carted that ton of bloody wattle bark down to Eden
for me & he never charged me any cartage or anything, because he knew that
if he did...I wouldn't have enough to pay the old bloke, I can't think of his
name, but he was a carpenter, he lived in Eden, & he'd made this little ute
out of this Charon...well when I got the bloody car...it wasn't friggin'
registered & I had no friggin license, see Bottrell's up on the hill &
he could see me driving around the bloody lanes all over the place, so he was
giving me a bit of rev one day about something I shouldn't have done or did do,
anyhow, he said, 'What about this car you've got? You'd better come up &
get your license,' I don't know what I said then, 'I haven't got the money' or
I don't know, I just forget what I did say right, but he knew it wasn't bloody
registered & he knew I had no bloody license, but he let me get away with
it, see he wasn't a bad fellow, old Bottrell, he was alright, nothing wrong
with him..."

"By Jesus, we had some fun with that car, it was only
seven horse power...no friggin' brakes, we drove it over to Brereton's, to
Ken's fishing, old Stump [Terry's Aunt] & I, we used to run it on kerosene,
we never had the money to buy bloody petrol, but by Christ she was buying a lot
of kerosene. You only had to unscrew the carburettor bowl & fill that up
with petrol & then she'd fart & blow & away she'd go...we'd go down
fishing at Brereton's there down at the mouth of the river in Summer time, &
when you leave Kenny's to go up that sharp little bit of a hill, well there was
only one way I could up there, I had to go backwards, it wouldn't friggin' well
pull up in first gear, it wasn't strong enough, you'd have bloody flames flying
out of her before she had any go in her, mate...it wouldn't pull a bloody sick
old mouse over, we'd be going up backwards & old Stump would be screaming
'Watch where you're going, where are you going?', & I'm saying 'I'm still
on the friggin' road woman,' & then at the top you'd swing towards that
little road down to Middle Beach, hard left, she'd go round screaming, full
lock you know, because you had to keep revving, but she'd be firing then until
she got to where the bowling club is [Lumen Christi], she'd be hot enough by
then. By Jesus, though, by the time you got into the friggin' old shed, she was
about to blow, old Stump would be out of it & running into the kitchen
screaming 'It'll catch on fire, it'll catch on fire,' & I'd be saying 'On
fire my arse woman!'"

Terry with his beloved Aunty Deletha, or "Stump"
& his son George at the Pambula River Mouth.

Colour, creed or social standing meant very little to Terry
- he took people as he found them, & when asked about the small party of
Chinese market gardeners who lived in Pambula during his youth, he simply
commented "They were bloody good people." He remembered "They
were directly behind the bakehouse, the bank, the Dr.'s Wing, all in that area,
they went down into that little gully behind the Top Pub...there was a little
bridge across there, I think there's a big motel on the corner there now...they
were growing carrots, parsnips, spuds, rock melons, we used to be down there
trying to pinch them for something to do!"

"At one stage there, they had a pretty big
garden...They all lived in there together, one camp right in the middle of
it...They had a little timber house, iron roof, it was a respectable little
joint right in the middle of their garden...They were just ordinary guys...just
ordinary old working clothes the same as us, oh they had those old Coolie hats
in hot weather, but other than that, they were just ordinary old blokes."

Doing the rounds through the township with their vegetables,
Terry remembered "...they never had a bloody horse, all they had was this
little cart & a bloody strap, & one bloke would pull that around the
town, he'd have a little chock that he'd drop under it to hold the shaft up &
they'd go to a house & the woman would come out & get her few spuds or
carrots or parsnips or whatever...This old Lambie [one of the Chinamen], he'd
take his cart to the show & sell his stuff & then he'd get pissed...old
Lambie would get pissed at the Pambula Show, well he'd pay us blokes to take
him home, we'd put him in this friggin' cart & pull him home & he'd pay
us, I forget how much, but it was pretty bloody good money, three or four bob
each, we'd pull him home & then get him out of the bloody cart there."

This reminded Terry of another of his enterprises - catching
& delivering echidnas to the Chinese gardeners. "I tell you what, the
Chows used to love those bloody porcupines, those echidnas, I hate to say it,
one & six they'd give you for them. Puddin' Burgess & bloody Jackie
Newlyn & I walked that bush, we bagged every bloody poor old echidna up for
the friggin' Chows, wouldn't matter if you took them friggin' fifty, they had
the money to buy them, they must have loved them...we took them to them live,
they didn't want them any other way bar alive, not damaged or nothing, I don't
know how they cooked them, but it wouldn't matter if you had bloody fifty,
they'd pay for them, the poor old bloody porcis..."

Terry with his four sons & Michael George, the son of
his cousin Mick.

Although Terry remembered about four or five Chinese
gardeners in Pambula when he was young, they gradually disappeared over time.
"...one would come & go, I don't know where he'd go to, but he'd
disappear for a bit & then come back...they were pretty old blokes, they'd
be 70 or 80 years old see, pretty old guys, but all of a sudden they must have
left the place. I think it got down to two, & this old bloke, Lambie, he
was one of the last two there..."

Farming & agriculture were the dominant industries in
the district during Terry's youth, when around 130 individual farms dotted the
area down to Kiah, up to Towamba & around the Ten Mile, but he noted with
regret how far numbers had diminished over the years. "...the last time I
was at Pambula there was only one bloody farmer the Victorian side of Bega
supplying Bega with milk, Bennett's old farm, there wasn't a friggin' farm
left, it's full of friggin' donkeys & horse riding & this shit, right.
There was all big families see, they had a few cows, they had chooks, a few
cows, a bit of butter & cream & they sent a bit of cream to the butter
factory... All out round Six Mile & Greig's Flat & where Fourter's &
that lived, Nethercote, see, farms everywhere, not a lot of big farms, but
they'd have a bloody can or two of cream there, & there was a butter
factory exporting butter directly to England...what's it now? Friggin' donkeys!
Hasn't the place gone backwards?"

Although a baker by trade, Terry turned his hand to many
occupations over the years - milking cows, helping on dairy factory cream
collection rounds, loading sleepers in Eden
& roof tiling, among other things, but his first job after leaving school
was trapping rabbits. "In the Winter time we were busy chasing rabbits,
money in the bunny, money in the bunny!", he recites.

"I'll tell you what, we usually used to throw the
carcase away & keep the skins. Now they throw the skin away & keep the
carcases...Funny how cycles turn around, that was when people had very little
to eat & rabbit trappers were catching thirty, forty, fifty, one hundred a
bloody night & they'd just throw them in a heap & let the crows eat
them, all they were after was the skins. Our rabbit skin export was second to
our bloody wool. Did you know that? That's bloody right mate. Our fur trade &
rabbits in the whole, what we exported to England
was second to our bloody wool clip, second biggest export. Export of coal,
beef, iron ore & everything right, that's how many rabbits were in
Australia...they used it for hats, underlay for linos & carpets, coats, all
sorts of bloody stuff...I can remember buyers coming around, but they bought
them with the skin on...see when I was going to school, you'd take the rabbits
into the bush & you'd throw them away, because everybody had rabbits in
their bloody front garden, they were everywhere...there was hardly a thing of
buying a rabbit because they were so plentiful, it didn't matter where you
went, there was no myxo, no calici & no disease amongst them, all they did
was kept multiplying & breeding & spreading from one end of Australia
to the other, there was nothing to curb them, none of this scientific
business..."

"If I set traps or went ferreting, Ernie & I, or
Bubby & I, we caught ten or twenty rabbits, I used to have to get the best
two out of the lot & they would be cleaned immaculately, & Aunty had a
lovely silver tray & a bloody white table cloth & I used to put these
two rabbits on the bloody tray & I'd take them up to old Mrs. Tommy
Robinson, knock at the door, come in, put them on the table, take the bloody
starched white tea towel off from over them & she'd poke & prod &
turn them over & look at these two rabbits & she'd only take one, six
pence, I had to take the other one straight home & Aunty would cook it ,
because they'd be two perfect rabbits but she wanted the choice of two, &
when she got the choice of two, six pence without blinking an eye."

Terry with his sons as well as those of Ernie & Mick
George, two of the cousins he grew up with at Pambula.

The simple things in life were definitely the best as far as
Terry was concerned, & never was he happier than when he could trap a few
rabbits, shoot a duck for dinner or hook a fish fresh from the ocean. These
were loves that he shared first with his four sons & then later his
grandchildren, but he was less than impressed when new laws were introduced
that put paid to those activities. "I'll tell you what though, I don't
know about NSW, but if you're caught in Victoria using a steel jaw trap, you're
fined twelve thousand bloody dollars, $12,000 if you're caught trapping a
bloody rabbit...see there you are, I've got a hundred rabbit traps, I can't do
a friggin' thing with them, nobody wants them, I can't set them, & I can't
sell them, I could probably give them to somebody, but then what can they do
with them? So what do they do, poison them! And then I've got a shot gun that's
forty bloody four or five years old, & I've got to hand it in.
Unbelievable! I say really it's unbelievable."

In terms of working, he pointed out "We were working
all the time, never got much money, but we worked. I remember turning the
bloody old sandstone over for Percy Radford when he was getting an axe ready
for a wood chop, you'd turn it over for half a day for two bob. Well then, in
turn, poor old Perc was a sleeper cutter, he only got two bob for cutting a
nine by bloody four by four sleeper, two bob, that's all those sleeper cutters
got for a hard wood sleeper, oh, that might have been black butt & other
stuff, I think Woolly butt & box might have been a bit dearer..."

Other sleeper cutters that Terry remembered by name were
Albie McCamish, Dick Miller, Chris Reedie, the Bobbins boys & Mick Perrin,
who he said "...was the king of the sleeper cutters, he used to cut about
twenty a day, other blokes would average about ten or twelve...see look, when I
was about ten or twelve, I used to go with old Goggie Haigh & bloody Les
Turner to all those sleeper cutters on the bloody trucks...that was a good
outing, going out into the bloody bush, way down over the border, all those
sleepers were brought back to Eden, so when you come to work it out, the
sleeper cutters had the bloody best of the timber cut around Eden to the border
supplying bloody hardwood sleepers to New Zealand & bloody India, so what
are the greenies yapping on about bloody wrecking the bush for? They got the
best of the friggin' timber there eighty years ago, seventy anyhow. Those poor
bastards...there wouldn't have been one in ten had a safe, they'd have a bloody
sugar bag with the bread & bloody bit of lousy meat...that's what they kept
their tucker in, & hung it in the shade..."

Terry (third from right) with a few of his mates outside his
Morwell home.

It was just prior to WWII that Terry moved to Morwell in Victoria's
Gippsland region, & there enlisted in the 22nd Infantry Battalion of the
Australian Army in June 1941. As with many of that era, though, you were
wasting your breath asking him about any of his war time experiences - he'd
usually just brush over the question & promptly shift the conversation onto
another topic. However, his larrikin streak did show itself when he explained
why he opted to become a machine gunner "So I could shoot the bastard's
faster, before they could get me!"

Bubby & Terry in front of Bubby's Pambula home. This was probably the last shot taken of the pair who had grown up like brothers before
Bubby passed away in 1976.

Following the war, Terry married Morwell girl Queenie
Bolding in 1949, & they had four sons - George born in 1953, Dan in 1955,
Colin ("Spence") in 1956, & the youngest, John, in 1957. When
Queenie died suddenly in the early 1960s, Terry took to single parenthood,
continuing to raise his boys alone until joining forces with Peggy & her
children, between them raising the family that Terry referred to as "the
tribe". Despite settling in Victoria,
he & his family continued to visit Pambula whenever the opportunity offered
to catch up with his Aunty "Stump", Bubby, Ronnie Haigh & many
others & drop a line in the rivers & lakes.

Terry (left) & Peggy (right) with Betty George in front
of Betty & Bubby's Pambula home, C. 1976 on one of Terry's last visits before Bubby passed away.

After a full &
busy life, Terry passed away on 2
September, 1998, doing exactly what he loved - out in the paddock
working. At his funeral, his family opted to forego the usual hymns &
prayers, instead farewelling him with John Williamson's "True Blue" &
"Old Man Emu", & what more fitting way to say goodbye to a fair
dinkum old Aussie bloke who epitomises what being true blue really means.

Friday, February 10, 2017

In
the days since Europeans began settling in the south east corner, many builders
& designers have played a part in the development of the area. None,
however, could be said to have had the influence on the built environment
locally & beyond than the Thatcher family. Three generations worked
over a period extending from the 1880s through to around the 1960s, leaving behind
them a precious, substantial & significant tangible legacy.

Renowned for the quality of their craftsmanship, family members were responsible for a wide variety of ecclesiastical, commercial, governmental, residential & community structures throughout the Bega Valley, Far South Coast, Monaro, Southern Highlands & Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The fact that so many examples of their work survive today as a built document of the history & heritage of the region & state only strengthens this importance.

Robert Wallis Thatcher with his wife & one of his sons, Lance Corporal S.R. Thatcher. Courtesy of the Manchester Archives.

Robert
Wallis Thatcher, a ship builder by trade, was born in Manchester, England, in
1861 to Robert & Charlotte (nee Wallis). Arriving in Australia via America
in 1883, he moved to Bega the same year to take up a position with John Malcolm
building the Bank of New South Wales. In March 1885 he married Emmeline Shorter
& eight children followed.

Bega's Bank of NSW (left) & court house. R. W. Thatcher originally moved to Bega to work on the bank building.

Quickly
establishing himself in the construction industry locally, by 1890 he had joined
with Robert Underhill to form the longstanding Underhill & Thatcher firm of
builders & contractors. A prolific pairing, the partnership undertook the development,
renovation, alteration & extension of many structures in & around the
Bega district as well as beyond. One of their first joint projects was the
brick two-storey Bega Convent, constructed in 1890-91. The building still
stands today, albeit altered & extended.

Bega Convent, as it appears today.

Due
to ongoing health problems, medical professionals advised Robert Thatcher that
a return to his English home land may help. To that end, the Underhill &
Thatcher partnership was dissolved in November 1905 & the same month, the family
boarded a ship bound for the “old country”, landing in England in December. By
February 1906, Robert was contracting in Manchester while June found him
working in London.After just two years, however, he decided to return to Australia, arriving in Sydney in January 1908. The same month he made his way back to Bega & “…the good old firm…” of Underhill & Thatcher was quickly re-established. Shortly afterwards, they secured a major contract for additions to Tathra Wharf, a job which they completed in March 1909.

SS Cobargo at Tathra Wharf. Courtesy of the State Library of NSW.

Increasing
Sydney-based projects saw the firm decide to relocate & in June 1912 local
media reported on their departure complete with staff. However, by late 1914
Robert had returned to Bega where he had embarked on the design & construction
of the Kameruka Hostel. By 1917, three of his sons were working in the business
& in 1923, when he took a lease on the Drill Hall in Gipps Street, Bega,
for his workshop & offices, he was trading as Thatcher & Sons.

A Thatcher design for a proposed building in Woodstock Street,
Waverly, in Sydney.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Kameruka hostel.Courtesy of the Museum of Applied Arts.

Kameruka Hostel.Courtesy of the National Museum of Australia.

Robert eventually went into partnership with his second youngest child Arthur Cecil, forming R. W. Thatcher & Son, & he remained active in the firm virtually up until his death at Tathra in May 1948. Arthur took over the family business, establishing A. C. Thatcher Pty Ltd & subsequently undertook some of the largest building & construction projects on the Far South Coast. He passed away in 1964 at the age of 65 years. Robert’s grandson, also named Robert, became the third generation to enter the family’s building & construction business.

Having been in business over such a lengthy period of time, there can be little surprise that the Thatcher family made a significant contribution to the development of local & regional heritage.

Among the ecclesiastical projects with which Robert was involved were the Bega Presbyterian Manse (1892); Cobargo Roman Catholic Church (1897 & 1937); St. John’s Anglican Church Lych Gates (completed in 1934) & Parish Hall (1897); extensions to St. Patrick’s Church, Bega (1909); Cobargo Convent (1917); Wolumla Church of England church (1922-23); Bemboka Church of England church (1928-29); & Cobargo Church of England church (1923).

St John's Anglican Church, Bega.

St Lukes Anglican Church, Wolumla.

Christ Church, Bemboka.

Christ Church, Cobargo (above & below).

On
the commercial front, he was variously responsible for the design & / or
construction of buildings including the NSW Butter Company’s creamery at Dry
River (1895); Bega’s Bank of Australasia (1904); Moruya’s Commercial Banking
Company (1905); S. H. Pearce’s coach & buggy factory, Bega (1909); a
picture gallery in Bega (1911); two double storey brick shops for the Gowing
Estate in Bega, (1911); a brick built motor shop in Bega (1922); four concrete
shops, also for the Gowing Estate, in Bega (1923); Bega Butter Company’s
factory (1924); the State Electric Lighting Company’s powerhouse in Bega
(1926); a bakery premises for Messrs Holzauser Brothers in Bega (1927); & a
new brick hotel for Herb Turner at Cobargo (1937).

Above & below: a building in Church Street, Bega, originally constructed for S. H. Pearce as a coach &and buggy factory.

Robert also undertook additions to the Central Hotel, Bega (1900); extensions (1901) & improvements (1909) to Bega’s Family Hotel; additions to Bega’s Metropolitan Hotel (1911); extensions to Candelo’s Commercial Bank building (1918); the addition of a balcony on the Bank Hotel, Bega (1923); & alterations to two double-fronted two-storey shops in Carp Street, Bega (1932).

Bega Family Hotel (above) & as the Bega Pioneers Museum (below).

Bega's Metropolitan Hotel, shown in the centre of the image.

Candelo's CBC Bank, C. 1908 (above) & as it appears today (below)

The Bank Hotel, Bega, C.1920.Courtesy of the State Library of NSW.

The Bank Hotel building as it appears today.

Hand drawn & coloured plans for proposed shops, flats & office,

Carp Street, Bega (above) & detail of same (below), by

R. W. Thatcher.

Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Plans by R. W. Tatcher for a proposed brick
residence,

Heath Street, Bega.

Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Never one to shy away from introducing unique design elements to his projects, Robert’s improvements to the Bega Picture Palace in 1911 included a unique roof fitted with pulleys, enabling it to be raised for open air showing or lowered when weather conditions dictated. In 1914 he commenced the design & construction of the Kameruka Hostel, reportedly modelling it on the Brighton Pavilion in England; & after undertaking enlargements, alterations & improvements to Bega’s Commercial Hotel in 1910, was awarded the contract for its demolition as well as the construction of new premises in 1926.

The Commercial Hotel, Bega, C.1925.Courtesy of the State Library of NSW.

The Commercial Hotel, Bega, as it now appears.

In the wake of the disastrous 1936 fire that razed shops in Pambula’s Quondola Street, Robert designed & then constructed a new brick service station for Godfrey’s Motors, completing the work in 1937. He also undertook to design the neighbouring building for Mr. W. Whitby, with his son Arthur completing the building work in 1938. The same year, the firm also carried out renovation work on Thomas Brothers’ Federal Stores.

The Former Godfrey's Motors building in Pambula, 1997.

A 1938 advertisement for the newly constructed Whitby's Service Station.Courtesy of a private collection.

The Whitby's Service Station building in Pambula, 2017.

The former Thomas Brothers' Federal Stores in Pambula, 1997.

The Thatcher family’s government projects included construction of the Wyndham Courthouse & Barracks (1897); a new store & other works at the Tathra Wharf (1908); Braidwood Courthouse (1900 – 1902); the manual training & science rooms at Bega Public School (1910); Housing Commission homes in Eden (1950s) & an ABC TV station on Brown Mountain (1964). The firm also undertook additions to the Pambula Court House & Police Station (1897); additions &

Detail of a hand drawn & coloured Thatcher plan for a proposed Ravenswood Street cottage for Mr. Weatherhead.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Even septic tank systems received concerted attention by Robert Thatcher, as this hand drawn & coloured plan shows.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Hand drawn & coloured plans by R. W. Thatcher for a brick residence for Mr. Benny in Cobargo.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

From a community infrastructure perspective, Robert Thatcher prepared plans & specifications for Bega A. H. & P. Society’s show pavilion (1903); worked on new wings added to Bega District Hospital (1903/04 & 1908); constructed a new grandstand for the Bega District Jockey Club (1933); designed the Bega School of Arts hall (1936); was the successful tenderer for additions to the Tathra Surf Club (1936) & constructed Candelo’s School of Arts (1936). He submitted “…a fine set of plans…” for the soldiers’ memorial wing of Merimbula’s Twyford Hall (1945) & took on the contract to build a ladies club house for the Tathra Surf Club (1946).

Bega Show Pavillion.

Bega Show Pavilion.Courtesy of the State Library of NSW.

Above & below: Candelo School of Arts building.

Detail of plans drawn up by Robert Thatcher for the Soldiers Memorial extensions to Twoford Hall, Merimbula.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

The Thatcher
family’s industry has left many valuable tangible relics throughout the region
today, but perhaps one of the most outstanding examples is the Bega Soldiers’
Memorial Gates. Reportedly based on Sir Reginald Blomfield’s 1921 design of the
Menin Gate Memorial’s triumphal arch in Belgium, Robert was responsible for the
monument’s design & in 1923, Thatcher & Sons’ £1,897 tender was
accepted for its construction. Completed & unveiled in May 1924, it,
together with the Dr. Evershed Memorial Clock Tower, has become one of the most
recognisable & identifiable symbols of Bega.

Bega Soldiers Memorial.

Bega Soldiers Memorial as it appears today.

Above & below: Commercially produced souvenir ware items illustrating

the Thatcher designed and built Bega Soldiers Memorial.

Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

In
conjunction with this extensive built document, Bega Valley Historical Society
holds a significant material culture collection relating to this outstanding
firm at their Pioneers' Museum. Known, unsurprisingly, as the Thatcher collection, it is comprised of
objects, furnishings & fixtures, archives, publications, photographic
material, illustrations & art work, including around ninety hand drawn &
coloured floor plans, elevations & positive & negative building blue
prints. The most extensive collection relating to this pre-eminent family firm
in existence, it is probably also one of the largest mixed material collections
associated with a single building & design firm in a New South Wales public
institution.

Part of the carpentry tools collection.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Wooden tool chest in which the tools were kept.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Above: former Bega Post Office counter made by R. W. Thatcher & (below) detail of one of the decorative bracket on the counter.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Above & below: BegaSchool of Arts ticket

box, built by R. W. Thatcher.

Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

Punched metal name place on the Bega School of Arts ticket box.Courtesy of the Bega Pioneers' Museum.

The
individual items in this highly significant movable cultural heritage
collection combine with the extensive remnant built document to create a rich,
irreplaceable snapshot of the contribution the Thatcher family made to the
building & design industry in & beyond the Bega district.

Bibliongraphy:

Apperly,
Richard, Irving, Robert, and Reynolds, Peter, A Pictorial Guide to Identifying Australian Architecture: Styles
and Terms from 1788 to the Present, 3rd ed., Angus and Robertson,
1989.

Australian
Institute of Architects, Register of
Significant Architecture in NSW, http://www.architecture.com.au/docs/default-source/nsw-notable-buildings/register-of-significant-buildings-in-nsw.pdf?sfvrsn=0